The Silken Dagger
by Mystic Scripture
Summary: Valinia Thomas wasn't a wolf to be trifled with. Having around four years of experience under her belt and a questionable background, wasn't ready to stop. However, when an old contact is killed in a town where witches, wolves, and vampires work together, she can't help but wonder if she'd have to ally with the things she hates the most to kill an Original Vampire.


The teenager crashed onto her knees, too invested in other aches to noticed that she'd split them on the cold, unforgiving ground. In fact, everything around her disappeared in the internal agony. Grinding her teeth. Clenching her fists. Trying to clamp down the pain. It was too much. She tried to just push through it like she'd been trained to do every time it happened, but as always, adrenaline and nerve endings ignited. Training flew out the window. What small grasp of self-control was keeping her quiet. She was going to break. She could feel it. Any minute now she was going to break. In seconds, she would mentally and physically break under the pressure of the change. With each passing second the moon rose. The slow cause of her seemingly endless torture. She pulled, and clawed at herself, crying out. It was scratching back. The predator within her wanting weak human flesh to go away.

Yes, the monster that she was bred and conditioned to become since she was still toddling around her mom's skirts as a child; it was breaking through her to emerge for its allotted night out. It wasn't an easy process, and it was slow at that. Working with the moon's climb to its peak in the sky. It was long, it was painful. She didn't have a pack to lean onto. She always hated being at the change's mercy. However, the sacrifice was something that she was willing to make. After all, the pain bore results. With each outing providing success, she could justify more pain. She would continue to all her body taking itself apart. She'd even take the reassembling itself together. The magical torture that could never be adequately explained to her. The all too small of a vessel that human skin provided slowly and painstakingly reshaping itself. It needed to be in the correct frame for the evening's carnage. The human was going to go away and the beast would get to play.

She finally let out a choked scream as the rest of her body exploded into itself. The 'her' part of her consciousness thrust into the background. The final twisting of the spine and the barreling of her chest was always the hardest part. She could never stay quiet during it. As she shook herself off with the last of her mind's control, she was overcome with the strangely soothing fatigue that came with her other half taking the wheel. Praying to whoever or _what_ever would listen, she hoped that with the end of the pain, would be more of an understanding on what 'she' was about to do and how she'll be able to complete what she was hoping to achieve.

As to be expected, there was nothing the next morning except for what the young woman could deduce from her surroundings. She found herself curled around the macerated remains too torn and liquefied to fitfully be called corpses. Among her intended prey she could make out the foxes whose den she'd unceremoniously borrowed. As she pulled herself into a seated position, she noticed that every inch of her body was slicked in a coating of half-dried blood, the viscous liquid adding a coppery taste to her mouth. She looked around at her handiwork, was happy to see that everything was a success. She'd found what she was looking for and gotten it. Nothing was left alive.

She took in the carnage with a sick pride, the half-shredded bits and parts of the various abominations making her satisfied with the month's planning. She had slowly been picking off members of hierarchy they created, the living dead killers. Given that they aren't one of those towns that had a founder's counsel, they had no one to blame and needed to meet and discuss. Well, that or they were going to go on a man hunt to find out who did it, either way, the result was the same. They went to their little hiding place in the woods and she pounced. She had minimal injuries, and another town was free from leeches like them. All that was missing was the fragmented memories that would come to her throughout the next couple of days to catalog and try to improve upon.

Shaking her head free of a few twigs and leaves, the teen stretched out lazily before heading back to where she'd left her things. Soon she would be on to the next thing, like the animalistic machine she was. After all, it was just another moon, and another slaughter to add to her ever growing list towards extinction. The walk was quite besides her own steps, so she sped away to the den. She had all that she needed ready in what she'd started to call her 'Moon Bag'. Travel size, all natural toiletries with a towel and a change of clothing, some water for her to chug, wipes in case there wasn't a body of water to wash in, and a bottle of aspirin to help with any residual pain. There were a few other things in there as well, like the bottle of 'emergency juice' that she had infused with a change-controlling herb, and a few stakes in case she miscalculated and ended up in a fight beforehand. Overall, just a handy little bag that she kept all the necessities in.

Upon reaching it, she threw on last night's clothing and checked her phone to see the current weather and her plans for the day. Noting them, she started to plot her return to her car. She'd take a quick bath in the small lake about a mile out, then she'd be able to seem human enough to be unsuspectingly hiking in the woods should any of the cops catch wind of anything. A frivolous precaution, but one she always made nonetheless. You could never be too careful when it comes to situations like this. So she made it, every time, her camera and bathing suit prepped to make things look more realistic.

She was pulled from her thoughts by her phone letting out a small jingle to let her know she was being called. Reading the caller idea, she let out a rueful smile. It looked like she could be going back to work sooner than she thought. Though seeing as she left this particular contact on semi-poor terms, this could be a rather bad call. She shrugged, and answered anyway: might as well see what this is about.

"Jules, how do you always manage to know when I need a new hunt to keep busy? I swear you're psychic or something." The girl teased, a rueful smile stretching across her thin lips.

"Yeah, well this isn't Jules and it isn't about a hunt." She stopped in her tracks, at the obviously male voice that came through the receiver. "But she had you as an emergency contact in her phone and well…. I'd say this is an emergency."

The teen felt a flurry of thoughts and questions rush into her head. Who was this guy? Why was he using Jules' phone to talk to her? What the hell did he mean by the unlikely event of her pack being taken out? Why would _she _be Jules' emergency contact when they barely ever spoke? They all swirled around her head in a dizzying hurricane until one thought pushed its way through the rest that was possibly the most important one: what does this guy calling her with all of this context even mean?

"So are you insinuating that her pack got destroyed and something happened to Jules?" She pressed, moving to lean against a tree and run a hand through the snarls in her hair. "And if so, what did you think calling me was going to solve?"

"I don't know about the pack per say, none of them are really answering their phones and I can't tell who is who as far as this list goes but yeah...yeah I'd say something happened to her."

There was something in his tone that gave away so little yet so much. She clearly was in pretty bad shape if they needed to call a pack member, and if they were all unavailable and he was still scrolling through people and calling himself, well that could only mean one thing.

"Something didn't just happen to her. She's _dead_." It wasn't a question, but a fact, and it sent her gut aflame with anger. "Was it a vamp? Did one of those _leeches_ get to her?"

"Well that… that is a longer story that I should probably tell you face to face so that arrangements can be made..." Though he had a stern voice there was a sort of hesitancy. "But before I go any further with all of this, you are Valinia Thomas right?"

She closed her eyes slightly, a wave of annoyance crossing her features before she calmed herself. Why do people have to be so damn formal in their contact lists? If she didn't go by that name, why would you put it in your damn phone as that? Sighing, she rubbed at her forehead wearily and turned to her phone.

"It's just Nia...and I'll be there as soon as I can." She headed over towards the road where her car was, forgoing the bath to go take a quick shower in the hotel. "Where are you and who should I be looking for?"

"Mystic Falls, it's in Virginia...I can text you the address of a place to meet." He stated, sounding a little less concerned. "And it's Tyler…Tyler Lockwood."

"Well Tyler, Tyler Lockwood. I'm at the edge of Kentucky now, so I should be there in five hours or so." She paused struggling with social convention. "And I'm sorry we're going to have to meet like this...Jules was a good wolf and a hell of a fighter."

He didn't really answer, and for a moment she felt like she had most likely made a mistake. She was always bad at this part. She wasn't one to have a pack, and she didn't really do the whole mourning process. What was dead was dead and that was that. Maybe she'd been too crass or maybe she just needed to try to say something else, but she didn't want to make it worse and poorly display herself to this potential contact. Sure she'd miss Jules, but she needed someone to replace her and help her with endless mission.

Finally after a pause, he sighed, "Yeah...yeah she was. I'll text you the address and see you soon."

She harrumphed, out a confirmation and hung up the phone, getting ready for the hell that was going to be driving to Virginia. Getting to her car would be easy enough, since she'd found the hiking trail that had been her starting point before getting off the phone with the Lockwood kid, and her hotel room was already paid in full. Her bags were packed and pretty much ready for her to be tossed into the trunk of her Lexus anyway, so all that was left was to shower and stop for provisions.

Upon reaching her car, she had one thought that crossed her mind:

Mystic Falls…What a hell of a name for the place for a werewolf to die in.


End file.
